Common Prosperity Redux: Socialism “with Chinese Characteristics” Xi-Style

Posted on October 8, 2021October 11, 2021 by E Curb Nottus

Commerce & Business, Economic policy, Economics and society,, International Relations

The latest buzz phrases in economic policy in PRC under Xi Jinping are “common prosperity” and “dual circulation” (see Postscript). Actually, common prosperity (Gongtong fuyu) is not new at all to communist China, there has had two previous iterations, the expression originating with Chairman Mao as far back as 1953. Then in the late 1970s leader Deng Xiaoping co-opted the term, flipping it to help spearhead an economic reorientation from the ideologically adherent socialism of Mao to an opening towards market capitalism and private enterprise. Deng proposed a different route to common prosperity, one that allowed some peasants to get rich, which would provide the catalyst to drag the others towards the stated objective.

First generation billionaires and millionaires; social cohesion imperilled
Beijing tell us the purpose of the Xi-led common prosperity initiative is to reverse the growing trend of the wealth gap which has dramatically increased since Deng’s day. China’s rapid economic growth made it possible to lift millions of Chinese out of poverty, but has also led to a situation where the top 1% holding 30.6% of the country’s wealth. Estimates put the number of Chinese (USD) billionaires as high as 1.1 million (second to the US) (East Asia Forum 20-Sep-2021)⁼ᵃ⁼. According to Elizabeth Economy, China’s Gini coefficient ranks it in the camp of the world’s most unequal states (quoted in Andrew Collier, ’China’s ‘Common Prosperity Campaign Is Going to Be Tough’, The Diplomat, 18-Sep-2021, www.thediplomat.com). Many middle class Chinese citizens are flaunting thbeir nouvelles richesses with luxury acquisitions, which doesn’t go unnoticed by those lower down the socio-economic strata.

A pivot to the left?
The Asia Society’s Kevin Rudd described common prosperity as a strategy to re-establish the prominence of the state and the party over the market. Many China-watchers don’t necessarily attribute the new move by the Xi government to the communist party having suddenly rediscovered its 1949 socialist roots. With the situation calling for change, Xi is acting also with an eye to bolstering up his leadership and legitimacy to secure a third term as president next year.

Cracking down on Alibaba and Tencent
Xi and the party looked round for targets, pressure has been exerted on China’s high profile business elite, mega-billionaires such as Jack Ma and Pony Ma. In genuflect-like fashion their respective companies Alibaba and Tencent quickly came forward to pledge billions of dollars to charities (‘Chinese tech giants pledge billions to support President Xi Jinping’s ‘ common prosperity goal’, Dong Xing, ABC News, 07-Sep-2021, www.abc.net.au). Others to find themselves in the cross-hairs of the new reform agenda include private tutoring, online gaming and the entertainment industry. Critics say that leaning on big tech companies and taxing high and ‘unreasonable’ incomes won’t fix China’s structural inequality in income. What is required is a fundamental change in tax structure and state system which addresses the core problem of a lack of tax revenue. China’s share of revenue is 28.% of GDP cf. 40.3% for OECD countries, its personal income taxes loiter at just 1.2% of GDP cf. the OECD’s 8.2%. PRC’s “Achilles Heel” in tax is the paucity of its compliance, the present system results in a low number of personal tax payers in China relative to workforce size (Collier).

No “Robin Hood” scenario at work
The Chinese government has moved quickly to reassure concerned business heavyweights (and international investors) about its motives…senior economic official Han Wenxiu’s pitch: common prosperity was “not about killing the rich to help the poor”, rather, he said, it is geared to “doing a proper job of expanding the pie and dividing the pie” (‘Assessing China’s “common prosperity” campaign’, Ryan Haas, Brookings, 09-Sep-2021, www.brookings.edu).

The outcome of such a transformation as the reforms may bring about, some fear may be a “top down Utopian China” with, as K Rudd suggested earlier, even more power and control devolving to the party (‘Changing China: How Xi’s ‘common prosperity’ may impact the world’, Kaishma Vaswani, BBC News, 07-Oct-2021, www.bbc.com).

Little appetite for property and inheritance taxes
One source of redistributing wealth on a national level is taxation on property and inheritance (and a more progressive income tax). But there appears little enthusiasm to upturn this apple cart as it steps uncomfortably on the toes of communist party elites and their vested interests (Haas).

Endnote: Millennial “have-nots“, in dire need of a share of the common prosperity
The effects of the free market’s dislocation of Chinese society in the early 21st century falls heaviest on the young. Young Chinese face enormous pressures on the highly competitive road to success, starting with the pressure cooker of trying to excel in the gaokao (higher education entrance exam). Even with tertiary qualifications under their belt, so many find themselves chasing the same plum jobs. with nine million-a-year university graduates, with the exception of a fortunate few “a whole generation” miss out on the Chinese good life promised by the capitalist success story (‘China’s ‘common prosperity’ goal won’t mean Robin Hood style redistribution’, Andrew Leung, South China Morning Post, 23–Sep-2021, www.scmp.com). Signs of growing millennial dissatisfaction with the uber-demanding drudgery of the “996”⁼ᵇ⁼ work culture in large Chinese companies manifest themselves—largely via Weibo the Chinese social media network—in the “lying flat” movement (píng tâng) … more twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings opting to drop-out of the competitive rat race, thus earning the state‘s opprobrium (‘The buzzwords reflecting the frustration of China’s young generation’, Fan Wang & Yitsing Wang, BBC, 14-Jun-2021, www.bbc.com). Then there’s the elusive dream of home ownership, wealthy property investors and speculators have pushed the cost of owning a home out of the reach of many millennials…squeezed out of the property market, feeling burn-out from “996”, more young Chinese are forgoing (or at least postponing) starting a family.

Postscript: A new economic model to narrow the income gap
“Dual circulation” dovetails neatly into the objective of common prosperity. Beijing has signalled its intent to re-gig the economic model, moving away from over-dependence on exports and capital investment favouring large enterprises, and tapping into the potential of its huge domestic market. This could lead to a refocus on services, domestic consumption and the environment, and a reliance on “indigenous innovation to fuel growth” (Leung; ‘What is China’s dual circulation economic strategy and why is it important?’, Frank Tang, South China Morning Post, 19-Nov-2020, www.scmp.com).

𝄪 𝄪 𝄪 𝄪 𝄪 𝄪 𝄪 𝄪 𝄪 𝄪 𝄪 𝄪 𝄪 𝄪 𝄪 𝄪
⁼ᵃ⁼ conversely some 600 million workers live on the equivalent of US$154 or less a month (East Asia Forum)

⁼ᵇ⁼ 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week

Biography of a Small and Unassuming Zulu Pop Song: ’Mbube‘ versus the Goliaths of the Music Industry

Posted on September 30, 2021March 4, 2022 by Wolfgang Childerglas

Biographical, Commerce & Business, Inter-ethnic relations, Music history, Performing arts, Popular Culture

According to Guinness World Records the pop song that has been covered more times than any other record is the 1965 Beatles’ 1965 Paul McCartney-penned Yesterday (a staggering 1,600-plus recorded versions). Conversely The Lion Sleeps Tonight trails far behind the record-holder with a mere 160 or more covers (still a very large number of covers), but few popular songs in the modern era of music can match it’s convoluted, controversial and even tragic history.

The Evening Birds, 1939 (Solomon Linda on the far left)

Ripped off from the debut single
The story starts in the Gallo Recording Studio in Johannesburg in 1939. Migrant labourer Solomon (Ntsele) Linda and his troupe of a capella singers (the Evening Birds) cut a record in the Zulu asisicathamiya style. The tune with its spartan lyrics is called Mbube or perhaps more correctly Imbube (‘lion’ in the Zulu language). The tune they sing is not a particularly remarkable piece of music except for Solomon’s melody. As Cape Town music journalist Rian Malan, who is to play a key role in the Mbube story as it develops, puts it, “there was something terribly compelling about the underlying chant, a dense meshing of low male voices above which (soprano) Solomon yodeled and howled (“a blood-curdling falsetto”) for two exhilarating minutes” improvising as he went along…“a haunting skein of fifteen notes” (’In the Jungle: Inside the Long, Hidden Genealogy of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”’, Rian Malan, Rolling Stone, 14-May-2000, www.rollingstone.com). Recorded, the song sells over 100,000, copies in South Africa by 1948. Linda’s cut, 10 shillings for the recording plus a menial job in the record company (in the process signing over all rights to the song to company proprietor Eric Gallo).

From a humble back room recording in Sub-Saharan Africa’s only recording company to the American Top 40
This pattern of exploitation, injustice and racism (both overt and by omission) escalates when the story moves to America. Struggling folksinger Pete Seeger hears Solly and the Original Evening Birds’ 78 record, digs the sound and records it with his group the Weavers. But Seeger misinterprets what Solomon Linda is singing, changing the Zulu refrain ‘Uyimbube’ (“You’re the Lion”) to ‘Wimoweh’ on their recording (‘Mbube’ becomes the song ‘Wimoweh’). It’s a hit in the US in 1952 and Seeger’s career receives a big boost. No credit and no royalties for composer Solomon – although later Seeger motivated by pangs of guilt sends Linda a cheque for $1,000 via TRO/Folkways, however it gets siphoned off on-route and never reaches the impoverished Linda in the slums of Soweto in Jo’burg.

In 1961 a new chapter in the story opens, “doo-wop” band the Tokens, like all pop music enthusiasts in the US, are familiar with the super-catchy “Wimoweh” refrain and want to record it. Their RCA producers get songwriter George David Weiss to revamp the song. Weiss adds new lyrics (“In the jungle, the mighty jungle”, etc) and shifts the focus of the song on to Linda’s chanting melody. ‘Mbube’ having previously morphed into ‘Wimoweh’ is repackaged by Weiss as ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’, all three versions still bearing the essential imprint of Solomon Linda (Malan). The Tokens’ single—with singer Jay Siegel’s distinctive high falsetto—reaches # 1 in the US and internationally, eventually selling more than three million copies§. Again, no credit and no moolah for Linda who dies destitute in 1962 with just $25 in his bank account, leaving a widow and a half-dozen young children behind.

Spreading the largesse to TRO
While credited songwriters Weiss and RCA’s Creatore and Peretti cash in big time on ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’s’ soaring sales, other formidable industry figures in the US were getting in on the act from another angle – again to the exclusion of the song’s original creator. Eric Gallo in South Africa injudiciously trades his rights to Linda’s song in America to big international music publishers TRO, (The Richmond Organisation) cutting himself off from benefitting from the ongoing “gravy train” and enriching TRO founder Howie Richmond and his partner Al Brackman.

Industry eyes only on the prize
Rather than making an act of goodwill or perhaps an atonement of sorts for the wrongs done to Solomon Linda by shuffling a financially meaningful sum in the direction of Linda’s daughters, the major stakeholders, fixating on the riches they see before them, at the beginning of the Nineties dig their heels in, even resorting to wrangling among themselves. TRO and Richmond on one side and Weiss and co-writer Creatore on the other end up fighting each other in arbitration presided over by copyright law judges…”rich white Americans squabbling over ownership of the most famous melody ever to emerge from Africa” (Malan).

‘The Lion King’ jackpot

Disney’s turn to exploit the melody’s popularity
The “golden egg” of ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ explodes to new astronomical heights in 1994 when the Disney Corporation releases The Lion King, a blockbuster of a a movie—using ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ song—which by 2019 has raked in $1.65 Bn at the box office, plus spin-offs such as videos and merchandise. Not stopping there, Disney follows it up with a 1998 sequel Lion King II and a Broadway musical theatrical release (highest grossing Broadway production of all time – >$1 Bn). Added to all this is about another thirteen films that includes ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ song, plus its use in television commercials, endless airplay on radio and so on.

The long quest for justice and some light at the end
An amelioration of the unconscionable plight facing Linda’s family only emerges after Rian Malan takes up their cause in the Nineties, writing a penetrating exposé (published in 2000) which gets their predicament publicity and legal support, and also embarrasses the “fat cat” beneficiaries who make some insultingly meagre financial concessions to the family. A series of court cases ensue but untangling the complicated web of ownership of the three versions of ‘Mbube’ is not straightforward – for one thing both Linda and his two surviving daughters have already signed over their rights to ‘Mbube’ in transactions which were legal, also there are issues with expiry of copyright in both RSA and America. In 2004 the Ntsele sisters with the aid of copyright lawyers initiate a lawsuit against Disney. The 2006 ruling acknowledges that ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight‘ was of South African origin and rooted in Zulu culture (‘Copyright in the Courts: The Return of the Lion’, Owen Dean, Wipo Magazine, April 2006. www.wipo.int). In an (undisclosed) out-of-court settlement Disney (keen to avoid a PR disaster) and Abilene Music❆ agree to make an equitable and substantial payout to Linda’s surviving daughters. (’The Lion Sleeps Tonight’, Lydia Hutchinson, Performing Songwriter, 01-May-2017, www.performingsongwriter.com; ‘In the Jungle, the Unjust Jungle, a Small Victory’, Sharon LeFraniere, New York Times, 22-Mar-2006, www.nytimes.com).

Malan estimates (2002) that given the seeming limitless sales potential of ‘Mbube’/‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight‘ in all its versions and forms, the royalties owing to the song’s composer would lie in the region of US$15 million, a figure that Solomon’s descendants won’t ever see in their bank accounts…however through the unflagging, dogged persistence and refusal of Malan not just to grasp the nettle but to never let go of it⇼, and the stirling pro bono services of lawyers stirred to action by the injustice, the future is now secure for them, and credit for the classic song is now rightfully attributed to their father. One of those South African copyright lawyers Owen Dean expresses optimism that royalties will be secured for “the use of Mbube in all its derivatives, including ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight‘, for the benefit of the family” (Malan), noting also that there is “some pride in having successfully championed the cause of the small creator among entertainment industry giants” (Dean).

Postscript: Remastered: The Lion’s Share, a 2019 documentary shows writer and documentarian Malan’s quest to trace the roots of the mega-successful ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight‘ song, one of the most instantly recognisable pop melodies in American music, and his untiring efforts to help get fair compensation for the surviving daughters of the Black South African composer air-brushed from his part in music recording history.

🎶➿🎶➿🎶

—————————————-———————

§ artists to cover ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ include the Springfields, Roger Whittaker, The Tremeloes, Robert John, Glen Campbell, Brian Eno, R.E.M., They Might Be Giants and Tight Fit

☥ another go-to pseudonym—one used by Al Brackman to grab a cut of the songwriting royalty payments pie—was “Albert Stanton” (www.secondhandsongs.com)

❆ who licensed the song to Disney for the movie

⇼ The Guardian aptly summarises this irrepressible trait of the controversial RSA journalist: “Malan is at his best when he finds a story that allows him to employ the full power of (his) instinctive reluctance to take yes for an answer” (Tim Adams, 2nd March 2013).

A Place to Sell Fish in Sydney in Very Large Quantities: From Woolloomooloo to Blackwattle Bay

Posted on June 29, 2021June 29, 2021 by Bonza Rottwheeler

Commerce & Business, Local history, Old technology

Pyrmont on the edge of Sydney’s CBD is one of those inner-city suburbs which has undergone the dramatic effects of intensive urban renewal since the turn of this century – the traditional industries such as sugar refining, brewing, ship and boat-building, the old working class pubs, the modest workers” cottages have all given way to media and IT firms and high-rise apartments. One of the relatively few industry survivors in Pyrmont is the Sydney Fish Market on Blackwattle Bay.

Rudimentary beginnings at Woolloomooloo
The city’s fish market has been a local Pyrmont landmark, a continuing presence since 1966, but the city fish market’s history extends back much further than that. It was originally located on the corner of Bourke and Plunkett Streets, Woolloomooloo, on the eastern fringe of the CBD…the selling of fish here in a methodical fashion of sorts commenced in 1871 (some references give the year as 1872).

These Woolloomooloo “Eastern Markets”, according to newspaper reports of the time, show that it was much maligned for its deficiencies. The litany of complaints included its position, deemed far from central; the “barbarous nature of internal arrangements”, ie, the unsanitary practice of laying fish for sale on the uncovered market floor; logistics and transportation shortcomings, ‘transhipment’ was inordinately lengthy: hauls were transferred from catcher to small steamer to large steamer, dumped on the wharf at Botany port until carted to the market by wagon❈ and subjected to pilfering and deterioration on route; the whole process necessitating “maximum amount of handling (of) a peculiarly delicate commodity which suffered from unnecessary pulling and hauling” [‘City of Sydney Improvements’, Evening News (Sydney), 21-Nov-1891].

A developing fish market rivalry
With dissatisfaction with the Woolloomooloo markets palpable, a second fish market was established at Redfern in 1891 which came to be known as the “Southern Fish Markets”. The Redfern enterprise was a clear improvement on Woolloomooloo which had come came under the control of the City of Sydney Council circa 1907-1908. Redfern was conveniently situated adjacent to the railway station. Rail-transporting the fish eliminated the need to load and reload the goods several times, the process was more timely so the fish arrived fresher and in “marketable condition” (plus it meant lower freight charges by rail). Other advantages were new features like cool storage chambers and dedicated rooms for “smoke curing”. Redfern also had the bonus of being elevated, necessary to facilitate the draining of the seafood. Most crucially Redfern was a step up on hygienic fish presentation, placing them not on the floor but in specially constructed tables (around this time Darling Harbour was also mooted as a alternate venue for the fish markets but was considered not as good a site as Redfern)(‘Evening News’).

Redfern residents however were not enamoured of the fish market in their suburb, as a result of the uninvited 4am “wake-up calls” each morning: the approaching “rumble of fish carts and the vulgar ejaculations and rude raillery of the hawkers” [‘1872 First Sydney Fish Market’,
Australian Food Timeline, www.australianfoodtimeline.com.au].

Council market v private market
Sydney Lord Mayor, Alderman Taylor, in 1909 advocated relocation from Woolloomooloo to the Belmore Fruit and Vegetable Markets (where Capitol Theatre is situated today) [‘Sydney Fish Market. its Early History’, by Mary Salmon, Evening News, 02-Jul-1909]. This subsequently came to nought, instead in 1910 a new fish market was built a short distance from there at Quay Street, Thomas Street and Thomas Lane, Haymarket (today housing the Prince Centre), and run by the City Council Fish Market in direct competition with the privately-run Redfern operation.

Woolloomooloo continued for a time after Haymarket got going but in a much reduced form with some confusion about its status, as a contemporary article in the Sydney Sun pointed out, the Woolloomooloo manager in 1915, rejecting its description as a fish market, in a piece of double-speak referred to it as a “distribution centre”, adding that it was “merely a market incidentally. If there is any surplus of fish for sale it will be sold” [‘Not a Fish Market: Woolloomooloo Depot”, The Sun, 28-May-1922. In 1926 high profile businessman John Wren purchased the “old Fish Markets” premises at Woolloomooloo (Daily Telegraph, 04-Dec-1926) which was demolished in the 1960s, making way for the Astor Apartments.

Squeezing out the private market
The Council was determined to end the fish market rivalry with Redfern. The state government did its part to assist by refusing to renew the licenses of fish agents at the Southern Markets. Despite a view that the Quay Street fish market was not a paying concern (it was claimed that it handled only 20% of the consigned fish coming to Sydney), a bill was passed in state parliament in 1922 which allowed the City Council Market to acquire the assets of the Redfern fish exchange, which forced its closure the following year [‘Fish Fight: Council v. Redfern Markets’, The Sun, 03-May-1922. Woolloomooloo continued for a time but in a much reduced form with some confusion about its status, as a contemporary article in the Sydney Sun pointed out, the Woolloomooloo manager in 1915, rejecting its description as a fish market, in a piece of double-speak referred to it as a “distribution centre”, adding that it was “merely a market incidentally. If there is any surplus of fish for sale it will be sold” [‘Not a Fish Market: Woolloomooloo Depot”, The Sun, 28-May-1922].

FMA fish monopoly
The Haymarket fish market continued as the sole conduit for fish trading in Sydney until 1945 when their monopoly was expanded…the government transfered the marketing and selling of fish to the NSW Chief Secretary’s Department (hitherto unlicensed operators could sell fish outside of Sydney) which established a regulated and centralised market for the entire state. The central fish market’s control was consolidated in 1964 with the creation of the Fish Marketing Authority, a NSW statutory authority under the jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture¶ (‘Market History’, Sydney Fish Market, www.sydneyfishmarket.com.au]. The FMA’s role was to bring the seller’s fish and the buyer together, charging a percentage fee for this service.

“Next up, same boat mullet!”
Relocated to Pyrmont in 1966, the fish market management employed a ‘voice’ auction system, buyers would position themselves around the selling bay and as the auctioneer’s called each lot’s sale, they would verbally bid. Disputes among buyers were not uncommon given the din of noise present and with such a capricious arrangement.

Dutch flower market auction
In 1989 the FMA introduced a computerised Dutch auction system used in Amsterdam to sell tulips, replacing the old manual system. It works by setting the start price approximately $3 higher than the anticipated selling price and then lowering it until a registered bidder electronically lodges a bid [‘Sydney Fish Market’, www.pyrmonthistorygroup.net.au]. This innovation has made the auction process more efficient and quicker.

Privatisation and de-regulation
The state-run markets were privatised in 1994 and renamed Sydney Fish Market P/L. In 1999 full de-regulation meant catchers in NSW could now sell directly to any buyer with a Fish Receiver’s Permit, bringing to an end the Pyrmont market’s long monopoly over the sale of seafood in Sydney (private ownership of the market made the continuation of monopoly untenable) (‘SFM’).

The SFM at Pyrmont in 2021 is the largest seafood market in the Southern Hemisphere and one of the biggest in the world. Every hour of it’s commercial operation about 1,000 crates or 20,000 km of seafood gets sold (‘SFM’).

End-note: An intriguing sidelight to the operation of the fish market at Pyrmont during the 1980s (and I suspect before then as well) was the existence of a black market. As well as bona fide fish buyers, other individuals would frequent the daily markets with a view to unloading ‘hot’ merchandise or goods of a distinctly un-piscine nature for a ‘special’ price. Such shady transactions would often occur concurrently and even alongside the auction bay itself. It was that sort of place which drew all sorts of dodgy characters looking to make a quick buck, no questions asked.

Postscript: Future plans

(Image: The Bays Precinct Sydney)

The fish markets are moving again but this time staying on Blackwattle Bay, the new site will be 15,500 sq m in size, more than two-and-half times the present market, with a scheduled finish date of 2024. The new SFM promises to make the auction area more visible and accessible (off-limits to the public since the change to the computerised system).

~~↬↬↬↬↬↬↬↬↬↬↬↬↬↬↬↬↬↬~~

❈ a long six mile-plus haul to Woolloomooloo
¶ the FMA took over the marketing of fish outside Sydney which had prior to 1964 been the purview of individual fishermen’s co-operatives in coastal regions

Druitt and York: From Sydney Hotel/Bank to Hong Kong Business and Tourism House

Posted on May 2, 2021May 3, 2021 by E Curb Nottus

Built Environment, Commerce & Business, Heritage & Conservation, Local history

Eighty Druitt Street is a prominently located, heritage building in the Town Hall precinct of Sydney’s CBD. It’s colourful history owes its origins to an 1888 competition conducted by the Excelsior Land Investment and Building Company (and Bank Ltd) to design a hotel and banking premises on the corner of Druitt and York Streets (opposite the QVB – Queen Victoria Building). The contest was won by architect Ambrose Thornley and the completed commercial construction (circa 1890) adopted the name suggested by Thornley, “Central Hotel”.

Along the York Street frontage of the building was a separate “banking chamber”. In 1896 this became a branch of the City Bank of Sydney. The CBS banking company folded in 1918 and its branches were taken over by the Australian Bank of Commerce. By 1931 the ABS including York Street branch was absorbed into the Bank of NSW.

Meanwhile, the Central Hotel was bought in 1904 by a “Mr Roberts” who had apparently previous done a sterling job of value-adding and enhancing the nearby Criterion Family Hotel (The Newsletter (Sydney), 17-Dec-1904)✱. During the first decade of the 20th century the hotel was renamed the Gresham Hotel. In 1925 the hotel was bought by leading brewery Tooth and Co (‘Gresham Hotel: Sold for £47,000’, The Sun (Sydney), 20-Nov-1925).

In the 1980s the Gresham was converted into offices and in 1995 the building was purchased by the Government of Hong Kong. It has operated as the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Sydney, representing China’s Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong. The building is also used to promote Hong Kong tourism under the aegis of the HK Tourism Board.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
✱ located on the corner of Pitt and Park Streets, the hotel was part of the Criterion Theatre complex. The Sydney newspaper report of this reads like a glowing advertisement for the mysterious “Mr Roberts’” business

Just blogging away … doing the hard blog

Continuing the search for signs of Intelligent Life in the University.

Commerce & Business

Common Prosperity Redux: Socialism “with Chinese Characteristics” Xi-Style

A Place to Sell Fish in Sydney in Very Large Quantities: From Woolloomooloo to Blackwattle Bay

Druitt and York: From Sydney Hotel/Bank to Hong Kong Business and Tourism House